intensive farminghttp://www.ekklesia.co.uk/taxonomy/term/6754/all
enAfrican Green Revolution ignoring downsides of intensive farminghttp://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15552
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<p>Lessons from Asia's 'Green Revolution' are being ignored in Africa says a new report published by Christian Aid today.</p>
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<p>Lessons learned from Asia’s Green Revolution about the damage intensive farming can cause are being ignored in the race to help Africa feed itself, Christian Aid warns in <a href="http://bit.ly/pXo82N">a report published today</a>. </p>
<p>Sustainable farming techniques are being sidelined in favour of a quick-fix solution - modern seed varieties (MVs) that produce better yields if treated with synthetic fertiliser and pesticides. </p>
<p>Such inputs are expensive and the seeds need frequent replacement. In Asia, the use of MVs in a head-long rush for bumper harvests has been shown to accelerate soil degradation, destroy crop diversity and encourage farmers to go into debt.</p>
<p>As Africa seeks to banish hunger, sustainable alternatives that can boost production, incomes and food security, help conserve soil and water and build resilience to climate change, remain badly under-resourced. </p>
<p>The new report, Healthy Harvests: The Benefits of Sustainable Agriculture in Africa and Asia, says that while there is no denying the achievement of Asia’s Green Revolution in lifting yields and reducing hunger, improvements began to stall in the 1990s amid problems that should give African governments "more than a pause for thought."</p>
<p>These include widespread soil degradation, increased vulnerability to pests, farmer debts, a decline in traditional farming knowledge, increased inequality in rural communities, loss of biodiversity and increased greenhouse gas emissions from industrial agriculture. </p>
<p>In recent years, interested parties including the World Bank, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), USAID, the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations and African governments have promoted a Green Revolution for Africa that they claim would avoid such negative impacts.</p>
<p>While the efforts of such backers have helped focus the attention of policymakers and donors on the need to strengthen food security through agriculture in Africa, the solutions they advocate have tended to focus too narrowly around promoting synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, which were behind many of Asia’s problems.</p>
<p>"Governments and donors need to significantly re-balance their current focus on quick-fix, external-input-intensive ‘solutions’ towards a much greater support for sustainable agro-ecological approaches," says the report.</p>
<p>Particular concern is raised about a number of initiatives funded by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) founded in 2006 by the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundations, and supported by DFID.</p>
<p>Working in 12 African countries, it funds important projects promoting improved seeds, soil health, market access for farmers and finance and policy work. It also aims to increase productivity by improving farmers’ access to mainly hybrid seeds - part of the MV range - and inputs such as chemical fertilisers.</p>
<p>AGRA’s key activities in this regard have included funding African agricultural scientists to develop hybrid seeds and improved crop varieties, and funding networks of rural agro-dealers to expand small farmers’ access to seeds, pesticides and fertilisers.</p>
<p>The report says that AGRA funded agro-dealers in eight countries are selling "ever more quantities of chemicals to farmers and increasing their reliance on inputs".</p>
<p>In Malawi, where AGRA operates, ‘the principal beneficiaries of these efforts are the key suppliers of the inputs, mainly Monsanto,’ it says.</p>
<p>At the same time, training in Malawi of the agro-dealers in product knowledge – a key part of the AGRA programme – has been partly undertaken by the input suppliers, leading Christian Aid to question whether they have merely used the training to promote their own products.</p>
<p>The report says 70 per cent of the world’s nearly one billion hungry are smallholder farmers and the rural landless who have been long locked into a cycle of low productivity, lack of assets and services and weak market power.</p>
<p>Today, they also face the effects of climate change, land degradation and ground water depletion.</p>
<p>The report gives examples of successful sustainable agriculture techniques that can help, including diversification which involves cultivating a wide range of crops, introducing mixed systems of crops, livestock and aquaculture; and increasing biodiversity.</p>
<p><em>Healthy Harvests: The Benefits of Sustainable Agriculture in Africa and Asia is launched tonight at the House of Lords at a joint meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food, Christian Aid and the African Smallholder Farmers Group. It marks the UN’s World Food Day on Sunday, October 16. <a href="http://bit.ly/pXo82N">You can read the report here</a> </em></p>
<p>[Ekk/2]</p>
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<!-- google_ad_section_end -->Globalisation and DevelopmentNews BriefAfricachristian aidgreen revolutionintensive farmingWorld NewsThu, 13 Oct 2011 09:52:01 +0000staff writers15552 at http://www.ekklesia.co.ukHugh Fearnley-Whittingstall hasn't chickened out yethttp://www.ekklesia.co.uk/lifestyle/going_green/hugh_fearnley_whittingstall_chicken_out_campaign
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<p>River Cottage founder Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will lead a new campaign for Compassion in World farming aimed at convincing the public to purchase ethically sound chicken.</p>
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<p><a href='http://scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp?affiliateID=11961&amp;merchantID=2810&amp;programmeID=7459&amp;mediaID=48404&amp;tracking=&amp;url='><img border="0" src='http://banners.affiliatefuture.com/2810/48404.gif' align="left" hspace="5" /></a><strong><a href='http://scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp?affiliateID=11961&amp;merchantID=2810&amp;programmeID=7459&amp;mediaID=0&amp;tracking=&amp;url='>You can join the campaign against intensive farming here</a></strong></p>
<p>River Cottage founder Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will lead a new campaign for Compassion in World farming aimed at convincing the public to purchase ethically sound chicken. Fearnley-Whittingstall has been crusading for a change in law, and in consumer preferences about chicken farming for several years now. Its clear that many remain unconvinced by his arguments, and so the fight continues. </p>
<p>This new campaign will take the form of a tour of eight major British cities, including London and Belfast. (Full schedule below.) The message is still the same: intensively farming broiler chickens is just not humane and must be stopped. A typical chicken will live for a mere 39 days, during which time it will grow so quickly there is a 1 in 4 chance it will suffer from lameness and severe discomfort. Millions of them will die of heart failure long before maturity. </p>
<p>The campaign will encourage more people to purchase chickens bred according to minimum ethical standards, such as RSPCA Freedom Food. A blog accompanying the campaign can be found at <a href="http://www.chickenout.tv" title="www.chickenout.tv">www.chickenout.tv</a>.</p>
<p>To find out more about Compassion in World Farming and to join the campaign against intensive farming <strong><a href='http://scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp?affiliateID=11961&amp;merchantID=2810&amp;programmeID=7459&amp;mediaID=0&amp;tracking=&amp;url='>click here.</a></strong></p>
<p>The Chicken Out! tour will take in the following UK cities:</p>
<p>• Plymouth: Friday 21st August<br />
• Cardiff: Saturday 22nd August<br />
• Manchester: Friday 28th August<br />
• Leeds: Saturday 29th August<br />
• Belfast: Saturday 5th September<br />
• Cambridge: Friday 11th September<br />
• London: Saturday 12th September<br />
• Axminster: Thursday 17th September</p>
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<!-- google_ad_section_end -->Ecology and Environmentcare for animalsGoing Greenintensive farmingLifestyleWed, 19 Aug 2009 10:42:36 +0000staff writers10099 at http://www.ekklesia.co.ukInvestigation into intensive pig farming trots out tonighthttp://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/8515
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<p>An eco-campaigner and former actress will be lifting the lid on intensive pig farming in a television investigation to be screened tonight. The Marchioness of Worcester has campaigned for years for quality food.</p>
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<p><a href='http://scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp?affiliateID=11961&amp;merchantID=2810&amp;programmeID=7459&amp;mediaID=48404&amp;tracking=&amp;url='><img border=0 src='http://banners.affiliatefuture.com/2810/48404.gif' align="left" hspace="5" /></a><strong><a href='http://scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp?affiliateID=11961&amp;merchantID=2810&amp;programmeID=7459&amp;mediaID=0&amp;tracking=&amp;url='>You can join the campaign against intensive farming here</a></strong></p>
<p>An eco-campaigner and former actress will be lifting the lid on intensive pig farming in a television investigation to be screened tonight.</p>
<p>Tracy Worcester, the Marchioness of Worcester, has campaigned for years for quality food, animal welfare and environmental protection through a revitalisation of rural economies.</p>
<p>She believes that people need to become active and aware consumers. </p>
<p>Pig Business, to be screened on More 4 tonight as part of Channel 4’s ‘Great British Foodfight, is Tracy’s four year investigation into intensive pig farming. </p>
<p>She argues that intensive production systems harm human and environmental health, and is pushing traditional farmers out of business. </p>
<p>In the film, she travels from the UK, to the US and Poland to investigate and meets local people who believe that their health has been affected by the new pig production methods, as well as leading politicians and environmental campaigner Robert Kennedy Junior.</p>
<p>Worcester confronts industrial farming executives with her findings and argues that supermarket labeling is not a reliable guide to where pork actually comes from.</p>
<p>Tracy Worcester said: "I believe that if people knew the real cost of the cheap pork sold in supermarkets, in terms of environmental pollution as well as human and animal misery, they would never buy it again. </p>
<p>"If shoppers can look behind the label in ways my film describes, they will see that by exercising their consumer power they can help to protect our independent British farmers. I believe our farmers would then be able to further improve welfare standards to produce human, animal and environmentally friendly pork." </p>
<p><strong><a href='http://scripts.affiliatefuture.com/AFClick.asp?affiliateID=11961&amp;merchantID=2810&amp;programmeID=7459&amp;mediaID=0&amp;tracking=&amp;url='>Join the campaign against intensive farming here</a></strong></p>
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<!-- google_ad_section_end -->Ecology and EnvironmentNews BriefAnimal abusecare for animalsgive a piggreat british foodfightintensive farmingpigpig businesspigsUK NewsTue, 03 Feb 2009 08:38:48 +0000staff writers8515 at http://www.ekklesia.co.uk